


Diary

by dasorbit



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: M/M, Nohyuck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:08:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22603729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dasorbit/pseuds/dasorbit
Summary: this is just a place where i want to keep the memories i made with you.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Lee Jeno
Kudos: 4





	1. first page

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Diário](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/556984) by Ariel (dasorbit). 



this is just a place where i want to keep the memories i made with you.

it is not a very important thing that deserves your attention, but if you are curious or interested, you can read as you please. i ask you to be understanding with the things i wrote, i am just a boy with a broken heart, and if you know what that is, you will understand me.

if you're looking for something, i hope you find it.

if you have come this far and are not yet bored, i wish you good reading and a lot of patience for the next pages.

with affection,

Lee Donghyuck.


	2. a cinnamon and a lot of rain

how did i meet my best friend?

it was a rainy day. the strongest torrential rain i had ever seen in my life (i'm 10), and i even asked not to go to school or i would end up being blown away, but it didn't work. i went to school in my yellow raincoat and a red umbrella, looking like _it._

i was only 10 years old and i was lucky enough to be able to go to school without the presence of an adult because my house was only two blocks from the school building. living close to the school had its advantages.

on the way, while playing with the puddles of water on the ground, i saw a silhouette standing in the distance under a cinnamon stick that was close to the bus stop. i realized it was a little boy. he was hugging his body, shivering and completely wet. i thought several times about just ignoring and going straight and putting my mother's greatest teaching on _never talking to strangers on the street_ , but i would probably end up regretting it later.

decided, i crossed the street towards the cinamom and stopped right in front of the little boy.

"hey" i said, putting the little boy under my umbrella "why are you here in the rain?"

he looked at me from boots to hat. his skin was pale from the cold, and i could see his fingers trembling. as soon as he finished deciding whether or not i was trustworthy, he opened his mouth to speak:

"I was going to school, but it started to rain," he said.

while he was telling me his sad story, i looked inside my purse for the towel that my mother had placed for me to dry off when i got to school. i didn't think it would do any good, but in the end, it was useful.

"take" i handed him "what's your name?"

he wrapped himself in the towel, looking so happy and relieved to be warming up.

"jeno. lee jeno" and continued "what about you?"

"lee donghyuck" i replied "we can go to school together."

jeno looked at me painfully.

"but your umbrella is small for both of us."

"i do not care. the school is not far away."

he smiled, and for the first time in 10 years, i saw someone's eyes smile. it was the most beautiful thing i had ever seen.

jeno wrapped an arm around mine, and we left under the camera towards the school, talking about everything that two 10 year olds could talk about.

eventually i thanked my mom for making me go to school that day.


	3. a conversation about love

one of these days i was in the middle of a very pleasant and intellectually enriching conversation with jaemin.

it was a hot friday and i was not at all excited by the fact that within minutes i would be sitting next to my best friend and her boyfriend watching a movie. see, i don't hate renjun. quite the opposite. he is so charming that i don’t know if you can hate him. renjun is, in every sense of the word, perfect.

you must imagine what kind of philosophical thoughts we were having sharing a little bottle of coke while we waited for jeno and renjun at a bank at the cinema. in the middle of the conversation about transcendence, he told me a story that would eventually keep me up all night.

it's called _sy_ _mpósion_. basically it was a huddle of philosophers trying to define the concept of love. unfortunate.

it was when i was writing down a huge list of touching and profound phrases about love in my cell, that jaemin quoted the myth of primitive unity, and it was right here that i finally paid attention to what he was talking about. jaemin said that there were three primitive genders: masculine-feminine, feminine-feminine and masculine-masculine that were separated by eros, god of love, as punishment for the ingratitude of human beings. from then on, we are all fated to search desperately for our other half because we only look for what we lack. it was touching, and at the same time desperate. centuries have passed and these people were still right.

one of my favorite phrases on this list was the one that jaemin told me at the end of the story:

_love is the desperate search for what we lack._

that night, when i got home, after watching almost nothing of the film thanks to yet another of those philosophical conversations with jaemin, i spent the whole night awake.

they defined love as something that we don’t have and that we seek in order to feel complete, and that’s exactly how i felt when i was with jeno. i came to myself and realized how desperate i was for his love because i missed something, and knowing that the other half of him was not me, is certainly the most painful part of this whole story.

i thought about it for hours and hours without stopping and at some point it started to make sense. it was two in the morning when in an outbreak of sheer madness, i took out my cell phone on the table next to the bed and dialed my best friend's number. he called one, two, three, and the fourth time i had the pleasure of hearing the sleepy voice of jeno ringing in my ears.

"hyuck?" he asked. i smiled immediately when i heard my name in that sleepy tone of voice "by god, did you see the time?"

i looked at the clock on the table beside the bed as if i didn't know exactly what time it was and without really caring about it. 2:08 in the morning.

"do you feel complete?"

silence.

he was probably still trying to situate himself in the world because of the time. i could definitely imagine the scene.

"what are you talking about?" he asked, confused.

"i mean... do you feel complete with renjun?"

"why are we talking about it now?"

"i had a conversation with jaemin and now it doesn't get out of my head."

"then you should call him."

"im more interested in your answer."

silence.

"i like him."

"that's not what i asked" i said and i heard his laugh on the other end of the line.

"i can think?"

"do you have a minute. it shouldn't be such a difficult answer."

silence.

"i will answer that another day."

"jeno!"

"answer you..."

"what?"

"are you complete?"

silence.

silence.

silence.

"donghyuck? you slept?"

"no... i was thinking."

"in answer?"

"no."

"on what?"

silence.

"is the person i love really my other half?"

silence.

"if it wasn't, then you wouldn't love her."

silence.

"but she doesn't love me."

"maybe she just doesn't know yet."

how i wish he was right. how i wanted him to know that all that talk was about the love that i desperately wanted to find in him.

after that day, jeno owed me this answer that he never gave, but i didn't need much to know that he felt complete when he was with renjun.


	4. my first love

my first love relationship?

as expected, my first kiss was with a girl. if I'm not mistaken, vague memories tell me it was in the bathroom on the second floor of the school when I was 13 years old. I didn't feel butterflies in my stomach like my mom said I would.

different from what i expected, i was not disappointed, but it was hard to have to hear jaemin talk about his incredible love experiences while my list of members was no more than number 1. not that i care.

so, after discovering that the real problem wasn't really the girls, here came mark lee. or as they say, my first love.

mark lee was a boy older than me, from last year. he was the guy. he was the captain of the basketball team and the most desired boy in all high school. to be honest, I don't even know how he got interested in me. it was just me, lee donghyuck, a boy with no sex appeal.

i arrived at school on a thursday morning that apparently was supposed to be normal, but my whole class was agitated, and then jaemin had finally told me what was going on.

"mark lee is looking for you," he said euphorically as soon as he found me through the halls.

"looking for me?" I asked, a little worried "what does he want?"

he pondered a few seconds.

"i don't know," he said, "you're going to have to go to him and find out."

it's obvious that I didn't go to mark. I thought about everything wrong that could happen if I went to find him and I ran away from him for as long as I could, but it was all in vain when at a party at the home of someone I don't remember the name, mark lee approached me and locked us in. the second floor bathroom.

"you are avoiding me?" he asked.

it was mark lee. he really was all that was said about him. I was nervous, it was impossible to calm my heart that was beating faster every second I stayed with him inside that tiny, dark bathroom.

i looked at him as if his presence did not affect me.

"I? why would i avoid you?"

he took a step closer to me.

"yea. why would you avoid me?"

"what do you want, mark? want me to do your math homework?" he was surprised "i'm sorry, but I don't do charity" he laughed, and I almost lost my mind "you should know that intimidating someone is bullying and... what are you doing?" I asked, my voice decreasing with each second that mark entered more into my personal space.

"you're funny, donghyuck."

when I felt my back hit the wall, I was sure that I wouldn't be able to stand for long seeing the way Mark's gaze crossed my soul.

nevertheless, after closing my eyes hoping for the worst, I felt mark's lips wrap around mine and shortly afterwards his hands held my body as if it were his property, so I finally felt that uncomfortable sensation, the butterflies that promised me.

the other day, when i woke up in jaemin's bed (even today i don't know how i got there), the only thing i remembered from the night before was to spend hours and hours kissing with mark inside the bathroom. jaemin says i drank too much and took my clothes off in front of the whole school, but i prefer to believe my version that mark was very kind and left me at jaemin's house at the end of the party.

the next week, the whole school already knew what had happened, and not that I cared that everyone knew that I, Lee Donghyuck, had stayed with Mark, but I was afraid for the first time. that feeling, the kiss and everything else, and especially mark, didn’t leave my head, and I was afraid that all of this was something I created on my own, but to my surprise, while having lunch with jaemin behind the field bleachers football, mark found me and said we needed to talk.

"I'll leave you alone" jaemin looked at me and then left, giving his place next to me for mark.

after he sat down, he was silent for endless seconds.

"everything okay, mark?" I asked when I saw that he wouldn't say anything.

"donghyuck" looked at me "I don't want you to think that I am that way."

like this?

"that way?"

he was clearly nervous.

"ok, maybe I'm a little bit like that, but the point is that I like you."

it was the first time that someone had said that to me. i vividly remember how mark lee left me: my heart was so fast that i could have an attack at any moment.

and fell on me.

"but you are all that" he said "and i am... just that."

he laughed and approached me some more to kiss me.

from that day and the following, we met every day behind the bleachers to be together. and I'm not just talking about kissing (which is what I liked to do the most), but we talked about everything. I met mark and fell in love with him a little bit every day, until I got to the point where I couldn't see myself without him.

he did me good, and the real good.

after we finally had the title of boyfriends, i introduced him to my mother and jeno, who until now were the most important people to me. all the happiness I felt in these two years that we were together, somehow, was connected to mark. mark was my first in everything.

it was two happy years, within this time, mark graduated and went to college, and this is where things started to... change.

we weren't meeting like we used to be, he was busy with college stuff and me with the college entrance exam, until all of this started to saturate us and we started to fight more than the healthy one.

in the beginning, I just didn't want to accept that everything I built with him was falling apart, I tried to make it work in every way and jeno was crucial at this point. when I went after jeno for comfort (which was the only one I didn't mind seeing myself crying), we had a conversation that hurt me, but it was necessary for me to see what I didn't want to see.

"do you really love him or just want him to feel loved?"

I don't remember feeling as much pain as I did the day I finally realized that that relationship was wearing us down.

it was difficult to get to mark and even more difficult to reach an end. I didn't say anything, nor did I need to be honest, I just cried and cried, and Mark knew what it was about, so we dispensed with the words.

I suffered for a long time, and even though Jeno denies it today, I know he suffered with me, because he was the only one I had the courage to look for in the middle of this storm.

it took me a while to work this pain on me, but in the end, i needed a mark to solve many aspects of my life, and finally understand that this was not the end for me. I understood the concept of first love, and that everyone should go through this to mature. without mark I would not be the donghyuck that I am today, and now older, I just thank him, and even though it was the most painful thing I have ever experienced, I learned a lot from him.


	5. jeno and renjun

of the times when jeno broke my heart, the worst was when he told me he was finally dating renjun.

it was a few months later that I got used to the idea of being in love with him.

"donghyuck" he found me around the campus at lunch "I have some news!"

he was excited. happy, and I could read it clearly on his face.

"did you pass anatomy?" i kicked, without giving so much importance.

"why would passing in anatomy be a novelty when I'm the best in the class?"

i looked at him, amused by his complete and total conviction. he laughed.

"so what is it?"

"i'm dating renjun!"

i am dating renjun.

i can't say how many times that phrase echoed in my head for that instant. my lungs had stopped working and my heart was beating a little slower. while looking at jeno wearing that huge smile of happiness, i just thought i had lost. there was certainly nothing to lose since jeno, in no way, even belonged to me.

"s-seriously?" i came back to myself after my pen had hit the floor "great! I mean, what did he say?"

"actually, it was a surprise for me. I was in the canteen and he arrived saying that he had something important to say..."

with each word I said, my heart was cut into a small piece, I felt like I was drowning. I was showing that smile, but in my head there was nothing but the absurd desire to run. at the end of jeno's speech, there was no part of my heart left.

"How nice!" the words seemed to want to come in instead of leaving "I... I'm so happy for you."

it was the first fake smile I ever gave jeno.

"are you happy?" I asked, even though I didn't want to hear the answer.

"yes. so much" Sentenced. your eyes smiling at me.

at that moment, my phone rang. i just really thank jaemin for getting rid of jeno for a few more minutes.

"i have to find jaemin, apparently he got in trouble" I said, getting up "I'm so happy for you, jeno."

"thanks" he held my hand "should I suspect something between you and jaemin?"

"what?" laughs at him "of course not."

he laughed too.

"ok. see you later."

"see you."

and turned around, getting out of there as fast as my feet could walk.

when i met jaemin, he already knew about the news. unfortunately, he and Mark discovered my feelings for jeno for my carelessness, and of course jaemin had to ask if i was okay about it. I had never lied to Jaemin before, and my yes, of course I'm fine, was my first lie. even if he denied it, I knew that the ice cream he bought me that day was because he was sorry for me. i couldn't be arrogant when jaemin was not to blame for anything.

after making up a thousand excuses for not having to meet jeno or jaemin at the end of classes, i stopped at the park on the way home, the one that used to play with jeno when we were kids. i always loved the way the sunset glinted on the toys and the sound of the wind hitting the trees. that late afternoon calm in contrast to the storm inside me.

I was sitting on jeno's favorite swing, waiting for time to pass. and if by some miracle, it also took the pain I was feeling.

"donghyuck?" got me out of my thoughts "what are you doing here?"

it was mark.

"nothing" I replied, ignoring his presence again.

different from what i expected, mark sat on the swing next door.

"Are you okay?" He asked. and he was certainly referring to jeno.

"perfectly well."

my voice came out broken, completely choked and my eyes burned like hell.

"donghyuck" mark called me again.

"what?" I turned my face to him, and only then did I realize I was crying.

mark was looking at me with those painful eyes.

"fuck," I cursed, bringing my fingers to my face in an attempt to wipe away the tears, which just kept coming down without my consent. and after moments of trying uselessly to wipe away the tears, I gave up, letting them leave without worry "I'm fine... you don't have to stay here."

"and leave you alone having a mental breakdown? obviously not" he protested. that vocabulary of a psychology student was so characteristic that I found it funny.

I just couldn't stop thinking about how happy Jeno was, and that the reason for his smile was not me. wondering how I could handle seeing the two of them together, and what it would be like to have to hear jeno talk all day about renjun, rubbing his happiness everywhere. I felt guilty for not being happy for my best friend.

when night fell, I remembered that I couldn't stay there forever.

I got up from the swing, and Mark followed me with his eyes of genuine concern.

"thanks, mark" he said "see you tomorrow."

"are you okay?" he asked again "really?"

smile.

"I will stay."


End file.
